![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kalinara posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
i_read_whatSo last time, a Finn-less, but surprisingly still thirsty Carillon met an old friend and sort of managed to collect the start of an army. He also made it a point to explicitly end the qu'mahlin, which is definitely a good thing and spares him from more of my mockery.
When we'd left off, Carillon had given Lachlan a test. Presumably he passed, since it's now some weeks later and Lachlan is still with the group. Right now, Carillon's at Torrin's croft. We're told that Torrin had been astonished to see Carillon alive, but sadly we don't get to see that reunion. Torrin has been allowing Carillon to use his croft as a temporary headquarters while he gathers more of an army.
However, right now, Carillon has other plans. And these plans, whatever they are, are making Rowan uneasy. Rowan seems to have slid into Finn's role of trusted confidant, but unfortunately, he's a little too subservient and lacks Finn's ability to call Carillon a fucking idiot. All he can do here is suggest quietly that Carillon take anyone with him.
Unfortunately, Carillon wants this plan kept a secret. Only Rowan and Torrin know about it. Rowan suggests Lachlan, but while Lachlan HAS apparently killed the soldier, Carillon still doesn't trust him completely. That's understandable.
The conversation gets interesting though, when Rowan points out that he's almost as much a stranger to Carillon as Lachlan is. But Carillon has an answer:
“I know enough,” I said. “I recall the thirteen-year-old boy who was captive of the Atvians along with me. I recall the boy who was made to serve the Lord Keough himself, though he be cuffed and struck and tripped.” Rowan’s eyes came up to mine, stricken. “I was in the tent also, Rowan. That you must surely recall. And I saw what they did to your back.”
His shoulders moved, tensing, rippling beneath the leather and wool. I knew what he did, flinching from the lash. He could not help it, no more than I at times, when I recalled the iron upon my wrists.
At that, the flesh twinged. I rubbed at both wrists, one at a time, not needing to feel the ridges to know they were there. “I know what it was, Rowan,” I said unevenly. “No man, living through that, would willingly serve the enemy. Not when his rightful lord is come home.”
This is perhaps the first time that Ms. Roberson has acknowledged, even indirectly, how traumatizing Carillon's experience had to have been for him. And it makes sense that he has that close bond with Rowan, who suffered through it as well.
Unfortunately, Rowan is humbled by this praise and therefore very willing to acquiesce to Carillon's request to keep an eye on Lachlan and make sure that he doesn't go running off to report to Bellam or something.
Finn would have told you to fuck yourself, Carillon, while you waxed eloquently about his sharp ferociousness or something.
Anyway, Carillon gets sentimental as he hears the soldiers drilling and practicing:
Through the trees came the clashing of swords and the angry shout of an arms-master. The men drilled and drilled until they would drop, cursing the need for such practice even while they knew it was necessary. They had been gone from war too long, most of them; some of them had never known it. Men came from crofts and cities and even distant valleys, having heard the subtle word.
Carillon, it said. Carillon is come home.
He does have some orders for Rowan though. Because Bellam will "know" something, he wants Rowan to take the army deeper into the forest, so as not to endanger Torrin. And we finally find out what Carillon wants to do: he's going to see and rescue his mother.
Carillon's not stupid though, he does use a disguise. He puts walnut dye in his hair and uses something to make his teeth (which he has all of, we're told) look yellow. He's wearing kind of terrible rags, and using leather bracers to hide his scars. He's also making sure to walk crooked, too. Also, he stinks. I admire his commitment to his disguise.
So Carillon goes to Joyenne, and it's also not doing great. It's possibly even more personal to Carillon because he's grown up here. (He even spares a moment to wonder, for the first time, if he had any children with the women who showed him favor. I'd never noticed that tiny bit of foreshadowing before, but it won't bear fruit for another book or two.)
Joyenne, we're told, was always meant as an estate rather than a fortress, but now it's gated and guarded. Carillon pretends to be a poor man, wanting to see his mother who works in the castle. He had picked the name of someone who worked there during his childhood, who had a son that was twisted by childhood disease. So Carillon gets into the castle to see his mother, Gwynneth.
The nomenclature of Homana is still rather absurd. The Cheysuli have Scot or Irish names. The Ellasians are Welsh. The Erinnish are VERY Irish. But Homana is a melting pot. Perhaps intentionally.
So Carillon finds his mother, and thinks that she's gotten old. Her hands are twisted and arthritic, and she's stitching but not with her old skill. Carillon thinks about how "illness had destroyed the grace [his] father had so admired."
But actually, Gwynneth is pretty fucking awesome. She recognizes her son immediately, gently drags his appearance and hygiene, and tells him that she knows why he's there and that it's his duty to take back Homana.
She also tells him point blank that there's no fucking way she's going with him.
She's got a good reason, pointing out something that Carillon has overlooked: Carillon's sister is in Homana-Mujhar, with Bellam. And as soon as he knows that Gwynneth has fled with Carillon, he'll hurt her. Carillon is horrified at the thought of leaving his mother in this cold, barren room, but she reassures him: she's not being hurt or beaten, they're giving her food. She's just stuck living like a pauper at the moment. It's not comfortable, but she's bearing it up.
In fact, she's happy now. She'd believed Carillon was dead, and now he's not. She doesn't intend to be a burden. When Carillon takes back his kingdom, and saves his sister, THEN she'll come with him.
Because this chapter is short, and the next one is too, I'm going to combine them into one review.
Chapter Eight gives us Carillon leaving Joyenne, as carefully as he came. He's disappointed, but he has to acknowledge that his mother's right. Also there's this.
It is a humbling feeling to know all your plans have been made for naught, when you should have known it at the outset. Finn, I thought, would have approached it differently. Or approached it not at all.
...Get a room. Except you can't, because Finn's still gone. Damnit. I can't believe I miss that asshole.
So Carillon starts heading back home to Torrin's croft. He's having a lot of deep thoughts, and finds himself feeling some envy of Lachlan, who's "secure within his priesthood." Lachlan, by the way, is not required to be celibate or cloistered, which implies that Homana's priests are. Lachlan's only task is to speak of Lodhi to those who will listen. Carillon respects that, and likewise Lachlan respects that Carillon's faith "lay in other gods"
I really wish we knew more about Homanan religion.
Things get a little tense when Carillon notices four men on top of a hill. Three of them in chainmail and one wearing dark clothes. He can tell by the glint of the ringmail that they're Solindish (Homanan armor is darker and duller). As he rides on, they come toward him. Obviously, not an innocent meeting.
Carillon is not defenseless though. When they take out his horse, Carillon is ready, and manages to land, draw his bow, and shoot one soldier in the throat immediately. He gets another in the chest. The third though, is too close for archery. Carillon has his sword though. This fight is more involved, but Carillon takes him out too.
But then there's last guy. Carillon doesn't see him right away, but he feels something: like vermin against his flesh. He realizes that it's his Caledonese knife*: it's growing in his hands and taking a new shape. Carillon finally sees the man watching him and realizes that he's an Ihlini. Carillon throws the knife away, which promptly reforms into an undead skeleton.
(*The knife had been mentioned earlier, as something he picked up in Caledon. I just never excerpted that bit.)
Apparently the knife had been from the bone of a monstrous beast. The Ihlini has remade it. Fascinatingly, Carillon realizes exactly what this beast is as it continues to reform, now growing brain and muscles and flesh: it's a lion. It kills Carillon's horse and it chases Carillon.
Carillon fights back, but the sword isn't very useful against a magic creature. It chases him in a circle, and he makes it back to his bow, where he takes one shot: at the sorcerer rather than the lion. The sorcerer dies, and the monster turns back into bone. Carillon steals the Ihlini's horse.
Carillon makes it back to Torrin's croft. He meets up with Torrin, and thinks about how Torrin had given up the blade to raise Alix, just because he didn't want to see a baby left to die. Aw. Carillon gives him a bit of a rundown, at least of the fight with the Ihlini. He's not looking great.
Carillon goes into the house and promptly meets up with Alix. HI ALIX!
Carillon greets her with a hug. She laughs at him for being filthy and humble. Then Carillon kisses her. Hey now. Not cool.
Only once had I kissed her before, and under such circumstances as she could claim it a token of my thanks. I had meant that, then, too, but more as well. But by then, when she rescued me from the Atvians, she had already pledged herself to Duncan. She had carried his child in her belly.
Now, she did not rescue me. There was nothing of gratefulness about what I was feeling; she could not construe it as such. In five years I had had time to think of Alix, and regret what had not happened between us, and I could not hide my feelings.
And yet there was Duncan, still, between us.
I let her go. I still longed to touch her, but I let her go. She stood quietly before me, color high in her face, but there was a calmness in her eyes. She knew me better than I did.
“That much you may have, having taken it already,” she said quietly, “but no more.”
God damnit, Alix, even in this better book, you can't escape being sexually harassed.
Carillon asks her if she's afraid of "what might grow up from this beginning". Hey, dude, you were the best of the men in Shapechangers. Knock it off.
Alix very calmly tells him no, and Carillon muses that she's changed and acknowledges that he's not enough for her. He tells her that he thought of her for years, and she says that if he were Duncan, she'd have felt the same, but he's not. He's special to her, but not like that.
I'm annoyed at Carillon for this, but I do like seeing an Alix who can calmly assert her boundaries with the expectation that they'll be listened to.
Carillon does have the decency to apologize, and we're told Finn greeted her in a similar way. Yay, incest. Alix seems amused rather than upset at least. She makes Carillon go bathe.
Torrin apologizes for not warning Carillon. They discuss Duncan in a way that makes me think Ms. Roberson hadn't read Shapechangers either:
“She was so young when first you met her. Then so new to her heritage, knowing little of royal things. And finally, of course, there was Duncan.”
The name dropped into my soul like a stone. “Aye…he had more sense than I. He saw what he wanted and took it.”
“He won it,” Torrin said quietly. “My lord—do you think to win her back from him, think again. I was her father for seventeen years. Even now, I feel she is mine. I will not have her hurt, or her happiness harmed. She loves him deeply.”
It's funny how innocent this summary sounds. No mention of rape, deceit, malicious use of his position and power against her, and trying to make her his mistress when he was going to marry another woman. Oh no.
Anyway, Alix does have news that brightens Carillon up:
“When did you come?” I asked at last.
“Eight days ago. Finn brought us here.” A warm, bright smile shone on her face.
“He is back?” I felt better almost at once.
Yay, now you can get a room!
Also, go for Finn dude, he's not married and actually seems to reciprocate.
Hilariously, now that Finn's mentioned, Alix herself almost seems like an afterthought!
I scratched at my itching face. “He is well?”
“Finn? Oh, aye—when is he not? He is Finn.” She smiled again, beating the dough with her hands. “Though I think he has another thing to occupy himself with, now.”
“A woman,” I predicted. “Has he found someone among the clan?”
She laughed. “No, not a woman. My son.” Her smile widened into a grin. “There are times Donal is more like his su’fali than his jehan. And now they have become close friends as well, I have only Finn to blame for my son’s little indiscretions. One was bad enough; now there are two.”
a) One of the many ways Song of Homana deceived me about Shapechangers. When I hadn't read Shapechangers, I enjoyed how Alix was clearly fond of Finn, and was interested in the complicated dynamic of their relationship.
Of course, Shapechangers showed me something completely different. And this fondness was not fucking earned.
b) It is hilarious how as soon as Finn is mentioned, Alix herself has become basically an afterthought. He was OBSESSED with her as soon as she walked in the room. But now, he's IMMEDIATELY focused on Finn.
c) And the assumption that Finn found a woman in the clan is hilarious too. Carillon immediately hones in on the potential of a rival.
d) God, I hope Donal doesn't end up like Finn. Egads. (...we'll see in Legacy of the Sword.)
So Alix offers to contact Cai and Storr to bring Finn and Donal here, but Carillon says he'll go up himself, after he's "shed [his] weight of dirt."
I can't make this shit up. He seriously doesn't want to see Finn until he's cleaned up and attractive again.
And then:
I looked at her a long moment, my hands full of threadbare cloth and hard brown soap. I wished there was more I could say. And then I said it anyway. “I will insult neither you nor your husband by pursuing you where I am not wanted.”
Color flared in her face again. I marked how the years had melted away the flesh of youth, leaving her with the characteristic angular, high-planed Cheysuli face. Her face was more like Finn’s than ever before; the children showing the father’s blood.
Carillon backs off. When he's reminded about Finn.
And now, we find out that Alix even looks like Finn now. So, exactly how much of his passionate greeting for Alix was actually FOR ALIX???
The chapter ends with Carillon musing about unrequited love:
I could not put her from my mind. I thought of her in the other room, kneading away, knowing she had Duncan close at hand. I thought of her with him, at night. I thought of her as I had known her: a young, sweet-natured girl with coltish grace and an integrity few men possess.
And I thought how odd a thing it is that two people can inhabit a single room, each knowing how the other one feels, and knowing there is no good in it.
No good at all. Only pain.
Well, hell, Carillon. At least her brother's single?
When we'd left off, Carillon had given Lachlan a test. Presumably he passed, since it's now some weeks later and Lachlan is still with the group. Right now, Carillon's at Torrin's croft. We're told that Torrin had been astonished to see Carillon alive, but sadly we don't get to see that reunion. Torrin has been allowing Carillon to use his croft as a temporary headquarters while he gathers more of an army.
However, right now, Carillon has other plans. And these plans, whatever they are, are making Rowan uneasy. Rowan seems to have slid into Finn's role of trusted confidant, but unfortunately, he's a little too subservient and lacks Finn's ability to call Carillon a fucking idiot. All he can do here is suggest quietly that Carillon take anyone with him.
Unfortunately, Carillon wants this plan kept a secret. Only Rowan and Torrin know about it. Rowan suggests Lachlan, but while Lachlan HAS apparently killed the soldier, Carillon still doesn't trust him completely. That's understandable.
The conversation gets interesting though, when Rowan points out that he's almost as much a stranger to Carillon as Lachlan is. But Carillon has an answer:
“I know enough,” I said. “I recall the thirteen-year-old boy who was captive of the Atvians along with me. I recall the boy who was made to serve the Lord Keough himself, though he be cuffed and struck and tripped.” Rowan’s eyes came up to mine, stricken. “I was in the tent also, Rowan. That you must surely recall. And I saw what they did to your back.”
His shoulders moved, tensing, rippling beneath the leather and wool. I knew what he did, flinching from the lash. He could not help it, no more than I at times, when I recalled the iron upon my wrists.
At that, the flesh twinged. I rubbed at both wrists, one at a time, not needing to feel the ridges to know they were there. “I know what it was, Rowan,” I said unevenly. “No man, living through that, would willingly serve the enemy. Not when his rightful lord is come home.”
This is perhaps the first time that Ms. Roberson has acknowledged, even indirectly, how traumatizing Carillon's experience had to have been for him. And it makes sense that he has that close bond with Rowan, who suffered through it as well.
Unfortunately, Rowan is humbled by this praise and therefore very willing to acquiesce to Carillon's request to keep an eye on Lachlan and make sure that he doesn't go running off to report to Bellam or something.
Finn would have told you to fuck yourself, Carillon, while you waxed eloquently about his sharp ferociousness or something.
Anyway, Carillon gets sentimental as he hears the soldiers drilling and practicing:
Through the trees came the clashing of swords and the angry shout of an arms-master. The men drilled and drilled until they would drop, cursing the need for such practice even while they knew it was necessary. They had been gone from war too long, most of them; some of them had never known it. Men came from crofts and cities and even distant valleys, having heard the subtle word.
Carillon, it said. Carillon is come home.
He does have some orders for Rowan though. Because Bellam will "know" something, he wants Rowan to take the army deeper into the forest, so as not to endanger Torrin. And we finally find out what Carillon wants to do: he's going to see and rescue his mother.
Carillon's not stupid though, he does use a disguise. He puts walnut dye in his hair and uses something to make his teeth (which he has all of, we're told) look yellow. He's wearing kind of terrible rags, and using leather bracers to hide his scars. He's also making sure to walk crooked, too. Also, he stinks. I admire his commitment to his disguise.
So Carillon goes to Joyenne, and it's also not doing great. It's possibly even more personal to Carillon because he's grown up here. (He even spares a moment to wonder, for the first time, if he had any children with the women who showed him favor. I'd never noticed that tiny bit of foreshadowing before, but it won't bear fruit for another book or two.)
Joyenne, we're told, was always meant as an estate rather than a fortress, but now it's gated and guarded. Carillon pretends to be a poor man, wanting to see his mother who works in the castle. He had picked the name of someone who worked there during his childhood, who had a son that was twisted by childhood disease. So Carillon gets into the castle to see his mother, Gwynneth.
The nomenclature of Homana is still rather absurd. The Cheysuli have Scot or Irish names. The Ellasians are Welsh. The Erinnish are VERY Irish. But Homana is a melting pot. Perhaps intentionally.
So Carillon finds his mother, and thinks that she's gotten old. Her hands are twisted and arthritic, and she's stitching but not with her old skill. Carillon thinks about how "illness had destroyed the grace [his] father had so admired."
But actually, Gwynneth is pretty fucking awesome. She recognizes her son immediately, gently drags his appearance and hygiene, and tells him that she knows why he's there and that it's his duty to take back Homana.
She also tells him point blank that there's no fucking way she's going with him.
She's got a good reason, pointing out something that Carillon has overlooked: Carillon's sister is in Homana-Mujhar, with Bellam. And as soon as he knows that Gwynneth has fled with Carillon, he'll hurt her. Carillon is horrified at the thought of leaving his mother in this cold, barren room, but she reassures him: she's not being hurt or beaten, they're giving her food. She's just stuck living like a pauper at the moment. It's not comfortable, but she's bearing it up.
In fact, she's happy now. She'd believed Carillon was dead, and now he's not. She doesn't intend to be a burden. When Carillon takes back his kingdom, and saves his sister, THEN she'll come with him.
Because this chapter is short, and the next one is too, I'm going to combine them into one review.
Chapter Eight gives us Carillon leaving Joyenne, as carefully as he came. He's disappointed, but he has to acknowledge that his mother's right. Also there's this.
It is a humbling feeling to know all your plans have been made for naught, when you should have known it at the outset. Finn, I thought, would have approached it differently. Or approached it not at all.
...Get a room. Except you can't, because Finn's still gone. Damnit. I can't believe I miss that asshole.
So Carillon starts heading back home to Torrin's croft. He's having a lot of deep thoughts, and finds himself feeling some envy of Lachlan, who's "secure within his priesthood." Lachlan, by the way, is not required to be celibate or cloistered, which implies that Homana's priests are. Lachlan's only task is to speak of Lodhi to those who will listen. Carillon respects that, and likewise Lachlan respects that Carillon's faith "lay in other gods"
I really wish we knew more about Homanan religion.
Things get a little tense when Carillon notices four men on top of a hill. Three of them in chainmail and one wearing dark clothes. He can tell by the glint of the ringmail that they're Solindish (Homanan armor is darker and duller). As he rides on, they come toward him. Obviously, not an innocent meeting.
Carillon is not defenseless though. When they take out his horse, Carillon is ready, and manages to land, draw his bow, and shoot one soldier in the throat immediately. He gets another in the chest. The third though, is too close for archery. Carillon has his sword though. This fight is more involved, but Carillon takes him out too.
But then there's last guy. Carillon doesn't see him right away, but he feels something: like vermin against his flesh. He realizes that it's his Caledonese knife*: it's growing in his hands and taking a new shape. Carillon finally sees the man watching him and realizes that he's an Ihlini. Carillon throws the knife away, which promptly reforms into an undead skeleton.
(*The knife had been mentioned earlier, as something he picked up in Caledon. I just never excerpted that bit.)
Apparently the knife had been from the bone of a monstrous beast. The Ihlini has remade it. Fascinatingly, Carillon realizes exactly what this beast is as it continues to reform, now growing brain and muscles and flesh: it's a lion. It kills Carillon's horse and it chases Carillon.
Carillon fights back, but the sword isn't very useful against a magic creature. It chases him in a circle, and he makes it back to his bow, where he takes one shot: at the sorcerer rather than the lion. The sorcerer dies, and the monster turns back into bone. Carillon steals the Ihlini's horse.
Carillon makes it back to Torrin's croft. He meets up with Torrin, and thinks about how Torrin had given up the blade to raise Alix, just because he didn't want to see a baby left to die. Aw. Carillon gives him a bit of a rundown, at least of the fight with the Ihlini. He's not looking great.
Carillon goes into the house and promptly meets up with Alix. HI ALIX!
Carillon greets her with a hug. She laughs at him for being filthy and humble. Then Carillon kisses her. Hey now. Not cool.
Only once had I kissed her before, and under such circumstances as she could claim it a token of my thanks. I had meant that, then, too, but more as well. But by then, when she rescued me from the Atvians, she had already pledged herself to Duncan. She had carried his child in her belly.
Now, she did not rescue me. There was nothing of gratefulness about what I was feeling; she could not construe it as such. In five years I had had time to think of Alix, and regret what had not happened between us, and I could not hide my feelings.
And yet there was Duncan, still, between us.
I let her go. I still longed to touch her, but I let her go. She stood quietly before me, color high in her face, but there was a calmness in her eyes. She knew me better than I did.
“That much you may have, having taken it already,” she said quietly, “but no more.”
God damnit, Alix, even in this better book, you can't escape being sexually harassed.
Carillon asks her if she's afraid of "what might grow up from this beginning". Hey, dude, you were the best of the men in Shapechangers. Knock it off.
Alix very calmly tells him no, and Carillon muses that she's changed and acknowledges that he's not enough for her. He tells her that he thought of her for years, and she says that if he were Duncan, she'd have felt the same, but he's not. He's special to her, but not like that.
I'm annoyed at Carillon for this, but I do like seeing an Alix who can calmly assert her boundaries with the expectation that they'll be listened to.
Carillon does have the decency to apologize, and we're told Finn greeted her in a similar way. Yay, incest. Alix seems amused rather than upset at least. She makes Carillon go bathe.
Torrin apologizes for not warning Carillon. They discuss Duncan in a way that makes me think Ms. Roberson hadn't read Shapechangers either:
“She was so young when first you met her. Then so new to her heritage, knowing little of royal things. And finally, of course, there was Duncan.”
The name dropped into my soul like a stone. “Aye…he had more sense than I. He saw what he wanted and took it.”
“He won it,” Torrin said quietly. “My lord—do you think to win her back from him, think again. I was her father for seventeen years. Even now, I feel she is mine. I will not have her hurt, or her happiness harmed. She loves him deeply.”
It's funny how innocent this summary sounds. No mention of rape, deceit, malicious use of his position and power against her, and trying to make her his mistress when he was going to marry another woman. Oh no.
Anyway, Alix does have news that brightens Carillon up:
“When did you come?” I asked at last.
“Eight days ago. Finn brought us here.” A warm, bright smile shone on her face.
“He is back?” I felt better almost at once.
Yay, now you can get a room!
Also, go for Finn dude, he's not married and actually seems to reciprocate.
Hilariously, now that Finn's mentioned, Alix herself almost seems like an afterthought!
I scratched at my itching face. “He is well?”
“Finn? Oh, aye—when is he not? He is Finn.” She smiled again, beating the dough with her hands. “Though I think he has another thing to occupy himself with, now.”
“A woman,” I predicted. “Has he found someone among the clan?”
She laughed. “No, not a woman. My son.” Her smile widened into a grin. “There are times Donal is more like his su’fali than his jehan. And now they have become close friends as well, I have only Finn to blame for my son’s little indiscretions. One was bad enough; now there are two.”
a) One of the many ways Song of Homana deceived me about Shapechangers. When I hadn't read Shapechangers, I enjoyed how Alix was clearly fond of Finn, and was interested in the complicated dynamic of their relationship.
Of course, Shapechangers showed me something completely different. And this fondness was not fucking earned.
b) It is hilarious how as soon as Finn is mentioned, Alix herself has become basically an afterthought. He was OBSESSED with her as soon as she walked in the room. But now, he's IMMEDIATELY focused on Finn.
c) And the assumption that Finn found a woman in the clan is hilarious too. Carillon immediately hones in on the potential of a rival.
d) God, I hope Donal doesn't end up like Finn. Egads. (...we'll see in Legacy of the Sword.)
So Alix offers to contact Cai and Storr to bring Finn and Donal here, but Carillon says he'll go up himself, after he's "shed [his] weight of dirt."
I can't make this shit up. He seriously doesn't want to see Finn until he's cleaned up and attractive again.
And then:
I looked at her a long moment, my hands full of threadbare cloth and hard brown soap. I wished there was more I could say. And then I said it anyway. “I will insult neither you nor your husband by pursuing you where I am not wanted.”
Color flared in her face again. I marked how the years had melted away the flesh of youth, leaving her with the characteristic angular, high-planed Cheysuli face. Her face was more like Finn’s than ever before; the children showing the father’s blood.
Carillon backs off. When he's reminded about Finn.
And now, we find out that Alix even looks like Finn now. So, exactly how much of his passionate greeting for Alix was actually FOR ALIX???
The chapter ends with Carillon musing about unrequited love:
I could not put her from my mind. I thought of her in the other room, kneading away, knowing she had Duncan close at hand. I thought of her with him, at night. I thought of her as I had known her: a young, sweet-natured girl with coltish grace and an integrity few men possess.
And I thought how odd a thing it is that two people can inhabit a single room, each knowing how the other one feels, and knowing there is no good in it.
No good at all. Only pain.
Well, hell, Carillon. At least her brother's single?
no subject
Date: 2020-07-03 04:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-03 04:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-02-04 06:40 pm (UTC)Nice to see Torrin back, as I remember him as being relatively decent last book.
Given that this gathering of forces usually takes place somewhat later in the book, I think they'll have plenty of difficulty before they can properly fight Bellam, or we'll be seeing extended fallout from the war even in this book. I'll be interested to see what it will be!
That's certainly a good bit on their experiences in captivity, I find! I'm liking this book more and more so far.
Good on him for going to see his mother (though I wonder at how easily he comes in), and I rather like how practical she is about it.
He can tell by the glint of the ringmail that they're Solindish (Homanan armor is darker and duller).
So Solinde is presumably more prosperous and better militarily than Homana, or at least puts more effort into giving that impression than Homana does... That would explain a bit about why they managed to occupy Homana, if that's true.
The Ihlini summoning a lion from Carillon's knife is genuinely cool, and also a smart way to go about attacking him without directly engaging; it's something I couldn't see happening in Shapechangers, and it makes me like this book all the more. (This also puts me in mind of your observation about Ihlini getting cooler magic than the Cheysuli, of which this is a good example.)
Five years is also enough to realise that you should respect Alix's decision and that you shouldn't be kissing people without asking, so I could expect Carillon to know better here. It is good to see Alix being allowed to stand up for herself, though (and good to see her back in general).
Donal sounds cute (for now, at least...), but I'd like a bit more of how Alix is doing; she was the protagonist of the entire previous book, after all, so I think she should get some more importance. By the way, by this entry, I have to join in in telling Carillon to get a room.
I do hope we'll get to see more interactions with the people from the previous book next chapter, as I've found I rather like those. Until next time, then!
(Something I just thought of: I do find it a bit hard to get into this book, though that might just be because I haven't read about it before, and don't care that much about this character set. Also, I like that you tend to be less summary in your reviews nowadays, as I found the story actually hard to follow a few times here.)
no subject
Date: 2026-02-05 12:01 am (UTC)Hah, I'm glad my laziness is actually somewhat useful!
no subject
Date: 2026-02-05 06:20 am (UTC)All the more so since I know she'll get killed next book... Good to know someone else shares my frustration, at least!
It also means I've got a good chance of catching up before you're done with this series, so I hardly mind. :)